Untitled

Untitled is an ongoing master series of black-and-white macro photographs of living plant elements. The photographs are taken in nature. The subjects are small, inconsequential and often not noticed or seen, but unique and precious. The series is abstract in that there is a departure from reality. The black-and-white, the macro lens, the emphasis on symmetry and on composition: these have the power to distil certain aspects of the subjects. Although the medium is photography, I think of my work as sculpture. There is an emphasis on the architecture, form and texture of the plants. Furthermore I stress what the subjects may evoke in the viewer. Certain subjects, by their physicality, the way they hang, the way they are intertwined, may evoke certain animal and/or human behaviors such as withdrawal, sensuality, love. The series' uniform portrait format acts as a sculptural base that not only contains the subject but also is used to emphasize its essence. The stem of a leaf is stretched up against the length of the frame in order to enhance a certain behavior that the subject evokes. The photographic process consists in chiseling away at reality. I remove color, context… I frame, determine a plane of focus and define details. I work until I give my feelings form. In doing so I aim to expose what I feel is the essence of my subject. I have no wish to educate or impose my own thoughts on viewers, but rather I want them to see and feel things independently. For this reason my work is untitled. As a whole, the series is a spectrum of images that enables the viewer to shift from one image to another and compare. The image itself - the larger-than-life scale of the subject, the attention to detail, the way the image evokes certain behaviors - has the power to seize the attention of the viewer, and focus it. My artwork invites contemplation.